Document Type
Article
Date of Original Version
2023
Department
Oceanography
Abstract
Background: Marine symbioses are predominantly established through horizontal acquisition of microbial symbionts from the environment. However, genetic and functional comparisons of free-living populations of symbionts to their host-associated counterparts are sparse. Here, we assembled the first genomes of the chemoautotrophic gammaproteobacterial symbionts affiliated with the deep-sea snail Alviniconcha hessleri from two separate hydrothermal vent fields of the Mariana Back-Arc Basin. We used phylogenomic and population genomic methods to assess sequence and gene content variation between free-living and host-associated symbionts.
Results: Our phylogenomic analyses show that the free-living and host-associated symbionts of A. hessleri from both vent fields are populations of monophyletic strains from a single species. Furthermore, genetic structure and gene content analyses indicate that these symbiont populations are differentiated by vent field rather than by lifestyle.
Conclusion: Together, this work suggests that, despite the potential influence of host-mediated acquisition and release processes on horizontally transmitted symbionts, geographic isolation and/or adaptation to local habitat conditions are important determinants of symbiont population structure and intra-host composition.
Publication Title, e.g., Journal
Microbiome
Volume
11
Citation/Publisher Attribution
Hauer, M.A., Breusing, C., Trembath-Reichert, E. et al. Geography, not lifestyle, explains the population structure of free-living and host-associated deep-sea hydrothermal vent snail symbionts. Microbiome 11, 106 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-023-01493-2
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-023-01493-2
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.